Wednesday, March 23, 2011

[The two thousand and fourth gamer ever to live sent me this, a guest review for 876. -Ed.]

Hi, Gamer_2k4 here. Normally I'm content to simply comment on bad xkcds, but I felt that this one deserved its own post. Since it's clear that this comic is simply just a failed attempt to write a setup to a bad punchline, let's start by examining the "joke" and go from there.

First of all, it's clear that Randall doesn't understand the Allegory of the Cave, or, if he does, he assumes that we don't. Plato's Cave is about how true reality is unwelcome at first, but once you understand it, you see how foolish your earlier delusions were. It's NOT about the nature of existence and the mind's relationship to the outside world. The notion of a "search and rescue" team is redundant, since that's the whole point of the allegory (bringing people into the light).

On that note, the alt-text is downright retarded. The issue was never getting the people out of the cave. That's a foregone conclusion. Even if you tranquilize them, experiencing the light is still going to be unpleasant once they wake up. Any removal from the cave is going to be unwelcome, and tranquilizers won't change that.

And look! I haven't even gotten to the rest of the comic! It's taken two full paragraphs to properly trash the idiotic idea that Randall tried to form a trainwreck of a comic around. The major point of failure is the operator herself. Her dialogue is unnaturally constructed purely to move the comic along. There's no way she could discern the guy's incoherent babbling that quickly, and the fact that she does proves that the setup is poorly thought out and just awful in general.

Then there's the caller. In just four short panels, he goes from not being able to see or comprehend the outside world (a feat strangely at odds with his ability to call and communicate with other people) to simply being unsure that it represents a reality and not a simulation. This seems odd for someone who's self-aware to the point that not only does he recognize he's a brain, but he also knows that even that is simply an organ in a larger body.

There is not a single redeeming quality in this comic. The characters, the dialogue, the supposed punchline, and the alt-text are all downright awful. I get the feeling that Randall, in a rare trip to a "soft science" like philosophy, got a half-formed idea for a "joke" but just couldn't pull a comic together around it. You know, for all the flak he gives the liberal arts, Randall sure tries to use and reference them a lot. Perhaps if he bothered to study them, his comic wouldn't be such a constant pile of garbage.

Well the resolution here is obvious: The girl DOESN'T exist. She responds so intuitively because she's just another delusion "the system" is giving him, and he's a fool for trusting auditory sensory input as valid. In other words............

......it's all in his head!

[okay, that was awful]

Captcha: guilless. Better hope she rolled a +2 on constitution, at least, so you can force 3 children out of her per round.

@Rinnon: I was actually referencing "Blood Royale", where your female children had two stat scores: "Constitution" and "Guile", ranging between -2 and +2. If they had high guile you married them off to soldiering royalty for attack bonuses, and if they had high constitution you married 'em off for baby-pumping [because high constitution would lead to a lower chance of dying in childbirth while trying for large numbers of kids].

Yeah, the cave allegory has nothing to do with acceptance of reality - the shadows the chained people see are images, imperfect knowledge. When they leave they see the actual objects, reality if you will. They see the ideas, not representations of these ideas, and these are true knowledge (unattainable, of course).

Randall probably understands it, he just incorporated it in a terrible manner.

Yeah, I think the real problem with the philosophy here is that Randy does a pretty good job of describing Descartes' skepticism about reality, but then slaps Plato's name onto it at the end for no reason at all—except that he had a joke about sending a search and rescue team into a Plato's cave. It's all philosophy, so it doesn't matter, right?

As I said in the previous thread, you'd think that Descartes' importance in the history of mathematics would lead to Randall paying him a bit more respect, but I guess the philosophy element trumps all.

Captcha: leeps. As in, both the operator and Randy make unexplainable leeps in logic.

This comic isn't funny, but it sounds like to me that the Descartes <-> Plato connection is pretty clear.

-Descartes questions the reliability of our sense in observing the actual world. He is saying that we might be only seeing imperfect versions of the actual reality.-Plato argues that we do not see the actual reality, or "forms", but imperfect versions of concepts. Granted, he didn't literally mean reality, but the perfect versions of every idea, but the connection is pretty clear.

Actually Funky, Descartes suggested (specifically so he could refute the suggestion) that the external world might not exist at all, not that our senses might convey only an imperfect version of a perfect, eternal world of forms. There's a (not so) subtle but significant difference. So, Randall fails both humor and philosophy forever.

What REALLY bothers me in this comic is "distorted splotches of light".

How does that work? If the brain is "seeing", then the eyes whould be opaque, not "splotches of light". Unless Randall believes our eyes are in the inside of the head and one can see his own empty sockets, but that's so horrid I'll stop right here.

Really, eyeballs are not "splotches of ligth". If Randall knew anything of anatomy, he'd know that, but I guess Biology isn't a "real science", eh?

Plato (or maybe Socrates, to whom he attributes a lot of his ideas) was concerned with the reason things (which exist, he took for granted) have the properties that they do. He concluded that they have them in reference to "Forms" which we cannot directly perceive.

Descartes put forth the idea that knowledge, even sensory knowledge, is fallible. He put forth the idea that the "actual reality" might not even exist, or at least we don't have any reason to conclude that they do.

They aren't the same or even similar in nature; in fact, they are dealing with separate branches of philosophy (respectively ontology/metaphysics and epistemology).

There's a "connection" in the same way that there's a connection between general relativity and quantum mechanics, because they both concern some of the same things. But if Randy fucked up those two things even his forumites would probably call him on it.

@Rinnon: Bloode Royale was totally kick-ass. Conquer Europe turn by turn while making sure your royal lineage doesn't accidentally end up under control of another player because of bad pedigree planning, despite constantly rolling heirs with (-1/-1) scores and sickly/ugly daughters that nobody wants to marry their healthy/leadership-heavy heirs to [under a contract of alliance, of course].

@Kitten: If you do, the Dice Gods will probably kill the child at 15 years old just to smite you. Naturally, your (-2/-2) child lives to be an old weird Uncle that gets forced to lead an army very poorly around your backyard.

Feh, now I want to play, but I'm pretty sure I cannot round up nine people for a game that runs one turn per week, even on the internet =\.

I feel your pain Ravenz. I've been dying to have a game of Diplomacy, but getting 7 people into the same room to play a 12 hour board game is unsurprisingly difficult. It was so much easier when I was still in high school... we all had Saturdays free!

Side Note: That DOES sound pretty kick-ass. I love non conventional take over Europe games.

Zomg, are you thinking what I'm thinking? Official XKCDsucks Dip/B.R. p.b.email club!!! Blood Royale uses Diplomacy rules as a base for the actual army movements/city capturing, so it would be a cinch for you to learn. ...You know, if we get 6-8 more people... O.o

Captcha: nesse. I got "nesses" twice before. Now I have the singular, I'm well on my way towards a collection.

Capn: Diplomacy is not unlike risk... but Diplomacy is to Risk as Chess is to Checkers.

Diplomacy doesn't use dice, which means there is no luck involved. Which is why I love it. I'd rather I lost because someone stabbed me in the back when I least expected it, than lose because I had shitty rolls. Nothing frustrates me more than having the superior strategy and losing to shitty dice.

Ranvenz: As cool as that would be, I've tried Diplomacy via forums before (Yes, I'm that much of a loser) and it doesn't work that well. We played it so that moves needed to be in by Tuesday Nights, and during the week we could spend time chatting with the other players during the "Diplomacy" phase. But it didn't work... hard to get in touch with the people at the right times, hard to keep track of the game over the period of half a year, etc. It was a fun idea, but it just didn't work for me.

@Rinnon: Oh, I understand, I've done the play-by-email route and I can vouch for the fact the 90% of that games suffer drop-outs within 3 turns, and promptly fall into apathy after a week of inaction. =P That, or you end up next to What's-His-Face who decides from the start, "welp, gonna spend the whole game attacking Italy [as Austria] regardless of how well it pans out!"

That, and we have to keep this place true to its origins: unbridled hatred over meaningless stick-figure comics.

Also, capn's captcha was the only one so far that I actually laughed at so points for crassness.

@Ravenz: Yep, that's pretty damn close to what happened. In a game that is so strongly tied to being able to tell if people are lying to you about wanting to help you move your units... it's just not the same when it's not in person. Especially if you've never met the people you're playing with. Makes it extremely easy to bluff, and it ruins the shock when you're betrayed.

*Warning, Busting out the War Stories*

This one game I played a few years back I really enjoyed. First time I had played with any of these people except one of them (friends of a friend). I decided it wouldn't be good enough to just go in without a plan... so I established a foreign policy. I told the whole group that I would never lie, and that I would never attack someone without publicly declaring war beforehand. I also stated that any act of aggression against me without a prior declaration of war was considered to be a war crime, and would be punished.

I followed through with this the whole game. Never lied, never attacked someone unexpectedly... It was extremely effective/fun. Only one person attacked me without informing me first, and I immediately dropped everything I was doing to wipe him out of the game. Considering he was Austria and I was Russia... not too bright of him. Especially since Turkey and I had a defensive pact. I'd talk to Germany and Italy and say things like "We can't allow the renegades of Austria to do as they please! Attacking people unprovoked, ransacking our supply depots! If they could do it to me, they could do it to you! Join me in my war effort against these savages!" So much fun.

Diplomacy: The awesomest game? Although if you haven't ever been in a 30+ player intentionally unbalanced megavariant you're missing out. Long story short: I was Serbia, managed to secure nuclear technology, build a single nuclear missile [to do so you have to waive a build for a whole year, which is pretty hard for small countries] and repeatedly issued M.A.D. orders [you get 5 every turn], "If Russia nukes [anyone], nuke Belgium", since everyone who isn't Russia or the USA only has limited range, and Belgium just happened to be close enough, until one day I got the map and found out that my MAD orders had been triggered and I'd declared war with a nuclear strike on non-Nuclear France, whom I'd previously been on good terms with. Hilarity ensued.

Kitten: Hahaha, I was thinking of that EXACT scene when I put up my warning. I realized I might look like a completely and total prat if I rattled on about my glory days of war board games, but it was worth the risk. (No pun intended!)

Ravenz: That sounds very awesome. What game was that though? Was it a homebrew expanded version, or is it an authentic remake that I'm just not familiar with?

For one, the awfulness in the latest comic comes not from the comic itself, but from the forums. Randall makes a pretty decent joke, and the sycophantic fans all go wild with "non-scientists just DON'T UNDERSTAND us scientists and why we are so AWWWWSUM and they suck".

(The goddamn stupid Blogger comment box keeps refusing to let me authenticate with OpenID and then refuses to even publish my comment. I lost the count of how many times I've tried. BLARGAGARH!)

The Diplomacy talk is awesome and all, but it's time for... *ahem*

MOLE'S CRAZY RAMBLINGS OF THE WEEK!

Ah, Randall Munroe. The faux-nerd manchild we all love to hate! One very well know characteristic of this abominable creature is his borderline-misogynistic constant white-knighting. What does this have to do with this comic? Please follow me.

What are our characters? StickRandall, BlondeMegan and, of course, the real Megan. Megan is, of course, the reeeeeeal scientist. BlondeMegan is... I dunno, is she supposed to be a liberal arts student(if so, then she lacks the horns and goat feet you'd expect in Randall's portrayal)? Or maybe she is a religious person? I don't know. But then we have StickRandall who's... um... he...

Ladies and gentlemen(and kitten), here's my point: the sole male in this comic does NOTHING.

He's a scientist, yes, but he react passively to what I suppose Randall considers a patent insult to science. He doesn't speak a single line and doesn't even change position. Heck, he could be a cardboard cutout for all we know. A cardboard cutout with a floating head, but still.

So, is Randall becoming the polar opposite to Dave Sim? Maybe. And if that's true, this might be incredibly funny in the long run.

Returning to the subject of SMBC, I don't think he should post less. Weiner explained why drawing and making a joke everyday was good for improving, and I think he's right. And the good thing is that he is evolving and always trying new stuff. He's been doing science stuff for like a year now, and even if I preferred his previous "hardcore subversion of expectations" stuff, I do enjoy most of the sciency comics. Zach Weiner doesn't make cartoons just because he has to, and I know that when he'll be bored with the science stuff, he'll turn to something new.

If you take only the 10% best cartoons of Zach Weiner, you have ten great, incredibly funny books, and the guy is what? 25?

It's nice to see a comic artist evolve and trying new stuff. That might be the problem with xkcd: the constraints (stick figures and nerdy jokes) are too strict, and, after a while, I guess he feels trapped in them.

The problem isn't that he paints Women in a good light, that would be just fine. The problem is that he consistently paints them as the superior gender in every way shape and form. It's so consistent that anytime there is a dumb person in XKCD, he is nearly guaranteed to be male, and anytime there is someone to put him in his place, it is almost guaranteed to be female. He clearly paints pictures where males of the species are and SHOULD be subservient to the obviously more intelligent females. It's not him trying to show equality, he's boot licking. There's a big difference. I simply wonder if he is aware that he does this, or if it's subconscious.

Guys who can't get girls usually believe that the guys who do are jerks, and girls want nice guys. Problem is, that's somewhat a lie. Point is, too much being a "nice guy" and you might end up becoming practically a parody of a "nice guy", and not even realize that.

And usually single, too.

I bet most of the "nice guys" get a clue and ditch at least a bit of the niceness with time and realize it's less about being a doormat and more not being a complete jerk.

On the other hand, we know Randall has never matured from high school so...

Oh I hear you, don't get me wrong, I understand where it comes from. When I was in Elementary School, and the earlier years of High School I was the same way. All the guys who had girlfriends were jerks and I thought it was much better to just be nice and thoughtful and do everything a girl needed me to do. That somehow this was the best way to win a girl over. I think a lot of nerds start out thinking that way.

@Anon 1.30: just this horrifying glance into this world where EVERY introductory conversation you have is:

'so what do you do?''oh, I draw webcomics-''oh man, webcomics! dude you have to check out this webcomic I know, it's called xkcd, it's so freakin' hilarious!''er yeah I've heard of it-''listen listen listen: *clears throat* "We can't send a search-and-rescue time into Plato's cave!" HAHAHAHAHA oh man you have to check it out''yeah thanks but I already-''what's your one called?''er, hang on, I have business cards''hmm. I've not heard of it. but yeah check out xkcd sometime. hehehehe'

@The Kitten of Vanity - All very well and good but have you no soap radio?

r.e. xkcd - I don't mind if you think philosophy's a lesser subject than science if you can throw Husserl and Wittgenstein and Aristotle and Popper back in my face, but if you can't even get your Plato 101 analogies in order, then seriously? You come across as an anti-knowledge and insecure.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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